Metro Manila May Borrow Idea From Rio to Ease Traffic

Metropolitan Manila, the Philippines’ capital region that is home to 12 million people, is looking to Latin America for a way to ease its worsening traffic.

Bloomberg

Trucks sit in traffic along a stretch of the South Luzon Expressway in Manila in April.

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Since the 1990s, Filipinos with cars registered in the Metro Manila area have not been allowed to drive their cars during rush hours one day a week. Now Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Francis Tolentino is proposing to make that two days a week, just like car-busy Rio has done.

He said the idea is among the measures recommended by the MMDA’s traffic engineering office to ease congestion in the center of Philippine economic activity. The office has also recommended limiting delivery trucks’ travel in the evenings and constructing bus rapid transit, which has helped Rio move more commuters.

Metro Manila mayors are scheduled to meet on July 24 to consider the proposal. Some questions they likely will want answers to include how would people commute if they are further restricted. Manila has notoriously poor bus and other public transportation. The government is stepping up the upgrade of the country’s main train system and is set to buy new coaches. Delivery of the new train cars will take a few years, however.

Data from the Philippines’ Land Transportation Office shows that the number of registered vehicles in metro Manila has increased to 2 million, up 28% from 1.6 million five years earlier.

Right now, motorists, based on the last number of their car’s license plate, are prohibited on one of the Monday through Friday workdays from driving from 7 in the morning to 7 at night, except for a five -hour window between 10 am to 3 pm.

For example, cars whose plate numbers end in 1 and 2 must not drive during rush hours on Mondays. Those ending in 3 and 4 can’t travel on Tuesday, and so on.

The rule was supposed to take around 20% of motor vehicles off the roads in the capital. But that’s not what ended up happening. A bustling economy has meant more people can buy cars. So, the new volume of cars has effectively offset the benefits of the restrictions.

Rio de Janeiro has a restriction that keeps motorists off the road for the bulk of two days of the workweek.

The idea would need to be approved by a majority of the mayors of the 16 cities and one town comprising metro Manila. Vehicles with plate numbers ending in 1, 2, 3 and 4 would have to stay off the streets on Mondays; 5, 6, 7 and 8 would be off on Tuesdays; 9, 0, 1 and 2 would be off on Wednesdays; 3, 4, 5 and 6 would be off on Thursdays; while 7, 8, 9 and 0 would be off on Friday.

The extra day restriction might only apply to Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), the capital’s 24-kilometer main beltway that spans five cities, where travel crawls to around 20 kilometers an hour during rush hour.

“We are still exploring if it should be done only on EDSA or in the entire metro Manila,” Mr. Tolentino told reporters at the sidelines of the Asian Crisis Management Conference when/where. “But eventually the traffic volume will be reduced by 40%.”

This wouldn’t be the first time the MMDA would adopt a plan to ease traffic congestion on EDSA. Previously, vehicles were limited to using EDSA every other day of the week, with the days of usage determined by the last digit in the plate numbers. Yellow lanes were also drawn on EDSA to keep buses from clogging all the six lanes of the beltway.

Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr., honorary chairman of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told a radio talk show that Filipinos get around past car-use restriction programs by buying more cars, adding to the congestion problem. He noted that in gated communities, cars already line streets since residents’ two-car garages are already full.

Marbot Borja, who has been managing the operation of a 160-taxi fleet for eight years, said if the current color-coding system is expanded to another day, it would hurt the pocketbooks of taxi drivers, who are already struggling.

“My suggestion is for the MMDA to limit this to private cars. That would mean more passengers for taxis,” Mr. Borja said.

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